The reference in this specification to any prior publication (or information derived from it), or to any matter which is known, is not, and should not be taken as an acknowledgment or admission or any form of suggestion that the prior publication (or information derived from it) or known matter forms part of the common general knowledge in the field of endeavour to which this specification relates.
In a modern economy, many people are searching for work (e.g., employment, jobs or positions), and many public and private recruiting entities (e.g., government bodies, corporations, partnerships, voluntary societies, recruitment agencies, etc.) are searching for people to do work (e.g., to be employed, do jobs or fill positions).
Finding work can be a time-consuming, difficult and stressful part of people's lives, especially for younger people, or people who are inexperienced in areas where they are searching for work. Inexperienced people can include new graduates (e.g., from a higher education course, a university course, a trade-related course, an apprenticeship, an undergraduate course, a research course, a community college, a technical school, etc.), or people newly arrived in a location or job market (e.g., immigrants from other countries, people moving to a new state, etc.). People can spend large amounts of time and money searching for the perfect position, or even finding a position that is acceptable.
Finding desirable, appropriate or even acceptable people to do work can also be a time-consuming, risky and expensive process for recruiting entities. Companies can spend large amounts of money and time in searching for and selecting appropriate job candidates: for example, much effort can be expended in human resource departments, recruitment agencies (or head hunting agencies), advertisements that positions are available, and promotions to attract job candidates.
It can be expensive, time consuming and difficult for a recruiter to determine a candidate's suitability for a position, or to determine and compare a plurality of candidates' strengths and weaknesses in respect of a given job. The decisions and comparisons can also be prone to human error (e.g., a recruiter's subjective opinion, or lapses in memory/judgement while reading a large number of résumés), e.g., when reading and trying to compare candidates' résumés. Existing recruiting systems and recruiting processes can fail to provide technical facilities that enable sufficiently convenient, efficient and error-free decision making in the processes of recruitment.
Some of the existing websites/systems catering for the Australian graduate recruitment market include: SEEK, MyCareer, CareerOne, GradConnection, LODE, and Unigrad.
SEEK, MyCareer, and CareerOne are the main job search engines that cater to the Australian recruitment market, with SEEK being the one with the highest market share. All three websites offer only a limited graduate recruitment service that predominantly caters for small organisations that recruit graduates on an ad-hoc basis. As such, they can fail to provide functions that allow for larger scale recruitment and ease of use. The responsibility for reviewing and filtering all received applications for suitability lies solely with the employer's recruitment staff, who can be overloaded for positions with many applicants, e.g., graduate recruitment programs.
GradConnection may provide candidates with a list of employers that meet their preferences by suggesting potential employers to candidates, graduates and prospective employees based on a limited set of lifestyle-related preferences specified by the employer (e.g.: that the employer allows graduates to use “Facebook” at work). However, the GradConnection website does not comprehensively determine the suitability of job candidates for a given position, and lacks tools for analysing job candidates' information.
LODE pools together résumés of graduates and candidates, allowing employers to headhunt/recruit directly from LODE's database. The responsibility of finding suitable applicants from within LODE's résumé database is placed on employers' recruiters. In addition, candidates may not be able to determine their suitability for a particular job position, or apply directly.
Unigrad publishes a graduate employers handbook annually and offers a graduate employer directory and graduate job listing service. In effect, Unigrad is a derivative of SEEK, MyCareer, and CareerOne that is targeted specifically at the graduate recruitment market.
It is desired to address or ameliorate one or more disadvantages or limitations associated with the prior art, or to at least provide a useful alternative.